Game Protectors Unhappy With Pact

December 08, 1985|by RON DEVLIN, The Morning Call

The ratification of a new wage contract late last month put the state's game protectors back on the hills just in time for the start of deer season.

But as they faced a virtual army of 1 million rifle-toting hunters last Monday, many of the game protectors - once known as game wardens - were less than enthusiastic about a settlement that does not include arbitration of grievances by a third party, pays overtime at the straight hourly rate and, in effect, requires them to work 150 hours of overtime in order to get a raise.

"We certainly didn't get much," said H.P. Goedeke, a Berks County game protector. "But our negotiators felt it was all we were going to get."

The new three-year pact was ratified Nov. 27 at a meeting of game protectors and waterways conservation officers, or fish wardens, in Clinton County. It became effective Nov. 30, two days before the opening of deer season.

Coming after talks had been deadlocked for several months, the settlement averted a potentially disastrous situation that would have kept game protectors out of the woodlands during much of the monthlong deer season.

The Game Commission had limited itsofficers to a 40-hour week, requiring advance approval of all overtime. In effect, the policy cut the game protectors' hours in half at their busiest time of the year.

The same policy applied to the Fish Commission's waterways conservation officers, but the situation was less critical since fishing season does not occur until spring.

While many officers were eager to get back to normal, the 63-48 ratification vote reflected considerable dissension among the ranks of the officers that enforce the state's game laws.

"My gripe is that in order to get a decent pay, we have to work 150 hours overtime," said Larry Olsavsky, the game protector for eastern Schuylkill County.

The new contract sets the base pay at $22,324, the same salary the state's 120 game protectors and 70 waterways conservation officers earned under the old contract. But it offers 150 hours a year overtime at the straight hourly rate of $10.73, or an additional $1,609.50.

Since game protectors and waterways conservation officers routinely work more than 150 hours overtime a year, in effect, the overtime provision becomes a raise.

Lance Hoffman, the Game Commission information director, said the increase amounts to 7 percent.

Mike Fox of the American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees (AFSCME), which negotiated the contract, said the straight hourly rate for overtime was a compromise. He said the state wanted to pay its wildlife officers half-time for overtime hours, while the union wanted time and a half.

Overtime compensation became an issue after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Fair Labor Standards Act, which requires overtime be based on the number of hours worked and some derivative of the employee's hourly rate, applied to municipal workers. The Supreme Court decision reversed a1974 case in which the Pennsylvania League of Cities was successful in arguing that the labor standards act did not apply to municipal workers.

The Supreme Court decision meant the state's "premium pay," an arbitrary lump sum payment with no relationship to hours worked, was illegal. The state discontinued it in August.

While the new contract resolved the method of overtime payment, it placed new restrictions on the amount of extra hours worked by wildlife officers. Under the old contract, officers were free to work unlimited extra hours - many put in 100 hours a week in hunting and fishing seasons.

The new contract requires a supervisor's permission for all overtime over 150 hours and mandates that 70 percent of it be worked during hunting and fishing seasons.

"What it amounts to is that for nine months of the year we are restricted to five hours overtime a month," said Cheryl Trewella, a game protector who covers parts of Northampton and Lehigh counties. "It's going to be difficult stretching it."

In addition to enforcing fish and game laws, the wildlife officer's duties include hunter and fisherman education, handling wildlife nuisance complaints, removing deer killed from the highways and speaking to sportsmen's and school groups.

Olsavsky said he voted against the contract because there were too many unanswered questions about things like scheduling. As he interprets the contract, it allows the Game Commission to order its officers to work weekends on short notice and still pay them only straight time.

Olsavsky said some game protectors also wanted to be included in the state's Act 111, which provides policemen with collective bargaining powers that include the right to binding arbitration.

The Tamaqua area game protector pointed out that there is a move to give wildlife officers Title 18 enforcement powers, which are the same as municipal policemen. But while the state increasingly sees wildlife officers as police officers, it refuses to give them the same bargaining rights, he complained.

"The majority of the guys who voted for it (the contract) wanted to get it over with," Olsavsky said. "They got fed up with the whole situation."

Richard D. Anderson, game protector for parts of Northampton and Lehigh counties, said the new con- tract is "probably not what expectations were, but it's better than the quagmire we were in before."

Anderson, who did not attend the contract ratification meeting, said he was "ready for anything that would get us moving."

While they concede that things are likely to improve somewhat under the new contract, several game protectors see problems ahead.